Archive for the '2008 Preseason' Tag Under 'Lakers' Category

ANAHEIM - The Lakers improved their exhibition season record to 5-2 Thursday night at Honda Center by beating the Charlotte Bobcats.

Lakers guard Kobe Bryant sat out the game to rest his hyperextended right knee. Bryant possibly will play Friday night in the Lakers' final exhibition game in Ontario, against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The game will be the first event held at the newly-opened Citizens Business Bank Arena.

Meanwhile, guard Coby Karl's fate depends on whether Lakers coach Phil Jackson decides to keep 15 or 14 players. Karl at least is not making it an easy decision. He scored eight points and snagged four rebounds, in 19 minutes off the bench Thursday.

Karl electrified the crowd and might have even surprised his dad, Denver coach George Karl, who was in attendance, with a fourth-quarter two-handed dunk, to polish off a fast break.

So Sports Illustrated predicts the Lakers will lose to the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference finals..

According to NBA general managers, the Lakers will go all the way this season, beating the Celtics in the Finals and give Phil Jackson his 10th title. That's their prediction based on an annual NBA.com survey to be released today.

So who are you going to believe?

Nearly half the GMs -- 46 percent -- predicted the Lakers would win the championship, while 10 percent picked the Celtics and 12 percent picked New Orleans. San Antonio received 8 percent of the vote and was not the preseason favorite for the first time in five years.

Individually, however, the GMs weren't as favorable to the Lakers, picking LeBron James over Kobe Bryant for MVP, but they did say that Bryant is the player they would want taking the final shot with the game on the line. He received 89 percent of the vote, the most for the seventh consecutive season.

SAN DIEGO -- Everyone loves predictions, so let's take an early advance peek at those soon to be released by Sports Illustrated's writers for public consumption. Basically, they love the Lakers ... until June.

They've got Kobe Bryant beating out LeBron James for the NBA MVP. They've got Lamar Odom making good on his demotion by winning Sixth Man of the Year, ahead of Chicago's Ben Gordon. They've got Andrew Bynum taking Most Improved Player honors over Detroit's Rodney Stuckey. (Bynum is also projected to earn third-team All-NBA honors at center, behind Yao Ming and Dwight Howard.)

And they've got the Lakers winning the Western Conference's top seed -- but losing to the Spurs in the Western Conference finals (before San Antonio beats Boston for the title).

Here's a snippet from what their anonymous advance scout says about the Lakers: "I still question whether Kobe Bryant has enough support to win it all this year. The Lakers are still young, and their style is more finesse than physical; just look at Kobe's top teammates: Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol. I don't see anyone else who has the tough, buck-stops-with-me demeanor that Kobe has. ... Odom totally disappeared in the Finals. He's extremely good in games that don't matter much, but when it's crunch time, he doesn't know how to raise his game."

Not sure about you, but we're ready for the scoreboard results to start mattering again. The Lakers probably would like to remove that 39-point Game 6 loss to the Celtics as their most recent performance, too.

The NBA doesn't need this much rehearsal time. Just ask Allen Iverson how important all this prep work really is in the end.

Let's get this nonsense over with and start the real drama, by which we mean identifying the next opponent who wants to punch annoying Sasha Vujacic in the nose.

Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum might give the Lakers' a nice one-two punch in the post - but the Raptors have two big men who complement one another.

Toronto Star columnist Dave Feschuk writes that, although the Raptors lost, they now have a physical post presence in Jermaine O'Neal - who sent both Pau Gasol and Derek Fisher to the floor with hard fouls. He also pointed out the difference between a hardened veteran and a guy who's still too young to buy beer:

"In one telling third-quarter moment, Andrew Bynum, the Lakers centre, got the ball in prime position for what should have been an easy score. But with O'Neal in his vicinity, Bynum hesitated for a beat. The indecision led to a travelling violation."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxviH7DfdOU[/youtube]Lamar Odom said he realizes he has brought upon himself some of the turbulence in his life.

There was the suspension for violating the NBA's drug use policy twice in eight months while with the Clippers and his struggles on the court.

There also was his rocky collegiate career, in which his acceptance of payments from a booster landed the school on NCAA probation. He also attended three different high schools, which raised eyebrows everywhere.

"I've grown up in front of people in L.A. and in front of the people of New York," Odom said. "Those are two big time cities, so when you make a mistake in those two places, it's under a microscope. But that's the way of the world. I'm a person who doesn't mind saying sorry, excuse me, my fault."

Coach Phil Jackson put the Lakers through nearly four hours of drills and scrimmages Monday -- a day following a game in Las Vegas.

One such drill, called the Indian Run, has all the players jogging in a line around the perimeter of the court. Jackson then would blow his whistle and the last guy would have to sprint to the front of the line.

When it was Kobe Bryant's turn, he cut a corner and dashed to the front and then suddenly the line slowed to a snail's pace.

"Phil teaches us to run together. You have a collective effort, one mind. So our one mind was to slow the (heck) down," Bryant said, laughing. "That was our collective mind. As long as you are playing together, you're fine."

Of course, Jackson's motivation behind the extra long practice might have been to teach another lesson -- not to party into the late night.

When Lakers rookie Brandon Heath and Sacramento guard Bobby Brown faced each other on the floor at Thomas & Mack Arena on Sunday, it wasn't the first time they had met.

The two squared off four years ago in a college game. Heath was a star at San Diego State at the time, while Brown was a sophomore star-in-the-making at Cal State Fullerton.

In that game, Heath scored 17 points to lead the Aztecs to a three-point victory despite Brown's 27 points. Brown made 7 of 11 3-pointers against the Aztecs.

At the NBA level, the result was similar with Heath's team bettering Brown's. But neither player made much of an impact as Heath scored just two points in the Lakers' preseason victory, while Brown had seven.

Lamar Odom played nearly 22 minutes Sunday in Las Vegas... and took an entire two more field goal attempts.

Yeah, he's confused, to be sure. He might even be confused about the object of basketball, which is to score.

"We're asking Lamar to do more now, actually," guard Derek Fisher said. "He's almost unselfish to a fault. Whether starting or not, we really need him to do more for us. I think he'll figure it out and be fine."

So the Lakers always travel around California during the exhibition season and play in Las Vegas, too. This season there's a game in Fresno (Thursday night vs. the Clippers).

It's not exactly going to be a fan-friendly Lakers caravan through the little city.

The Lakers are doing the unheard of and conducting their game-day shootaround practice at home in El Segundo -- not flying into Fresno for the 7 p.m. game until after working out at home. So they'll basically get into Fresno, go play the game and hop a charter flight right back home afterward.